UPDATED: C-SPAN’s Washington Journal Caller Problem

C-SPAN hosts are typically overly respectful and too patient as a handful of frequent callers spew invective and falsehoods against Jews and Israel. No other ethnic or religious group or nation is repeatedly vilified on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal 3-hour daily broadcasts. This vilification is enabled if not positively encouraged by C-SPAN‘s receptivity especially the feckless performance of the hosts. Many C-SPAN viewers, perhaps not knowing the facts and not hearing them from network hosts or, often, from guests, are at risk of being influenced by those callers seemingly driven by an obsessive pathological desire to falsely blame major world problems on the Jews and Israel.

This group of egregious frequent callers features a particular pair, a man and woman, working basically from the same script. For example, on two consecutive days in January 2010, the Washington Journal host for both days, Paul Orgel, listened politely, first on January 1 at 9:51 AM to “Janet from Birmingham, Alabama” and then on January 2 at 7:50 AM to “Carol from Scotsville, Arizona.” Janet’s call took place during a segment whose topic was “Social Networking & Political Participation” (no guest was on hand) while the topic for Carol’s call was “Rise of Al-Qaeda in Yemen.” The latter time, the guest was Christopher Boucek of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The following video clip (3.5 minutes) contains the Janet/Carol calls:

Janet’s monologue:

Hi. Happy new year to you. First of all, I want to back the caller from Colorado. No one mentioned the Goldstone report. I called in months ago and brought it up on C-SPAN because no one even brought it up on C-SPAN. As far as the Gaza protest, nobody – and you didn’t hear it on the news at all, the local news, CNN, Fox, MSNBC – none of them really talked about it. The best place to get your news is – I will name a couple of Web sites, if I may. One is PressTV dot com. You will hear all unbiased news – you will see things that are going on in the Middle East you’ll never dream that’s going on here because it’s covered up – for the ADL [Anti-Defamation League] actually runs the media. Of course, AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] runs our whole foreign policy. So, that’s the deal. Also you can go to america-hijacked dot com and you can see stories like , for example, CFR’s [Council on Foreign Relations] Foreign Affairs magazine. [Zbigniew] Brzezinski wrote of the motivation for attacks – 9/11 – well, because of our foreign policy because we back Israel – and support Israel – and all that – and their oppression of the Palestinians. Also, there’s another one you can go to – two more I’d like to mention if I may. One is – because of AIPAC influence – you can go to stopaipac dot com and you can go to neoconzionistthreat dot com for the other news. Thank you very much. Bye bye.

This caller is allowed to promote anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, conspiracy theory Web sites (the caller is allowed to carefully provide the complete spelling of the site names) including PressTV which is a propaganda tool of the Iranian government. Typically, the C-SPAN host failed to scrutinize the caller’s claim concerning the Foreign Affairs magazine article by Mr. Brzezinski, not even asking to which issue, e.g. January/February 2010, she was referring. Mr. Brzezinski’s article in that issue did not say what is claimed by the caller. Likewise, Mr. Orgel failed to point out that bin Laden stated in his fatwas in the 90s, that his main motivation for 9/11 was the presence of U.S. forces in “the land of the two holy places” (meaning Saudi Arabia).

Carol’s monologue:

Yes, hello. First of all, keep in mind what George Washington warned of – of getting entangled in foreign governments. Why don’t we talk about the motivation. You should have on Ben Stein and Ron Paul. I think you guys should do – and let them finish the debate that they started – when Ben Stein really owes Ron Paul an apology of calling him anti-Semitic. Well, he didn’t say anything anti-Semitic. But what he did say is – I guess because they’re guilty of it – because they’re occupying their country and they’re angry, and rightfully so. And also support for Israel, the oppression of the Palestinians and you have no idea of what’s going on there – you gotta go on PressTV to find out – and that’s what motivated the 9/11 attack on 9/11 which you can see – there’s proof in the 9/11 commission report on page 147. Obama should be in world court right now for war crimes just like George Bush.

Neither the host nor guest commented on this caller’s anti-Jewish, anti-Israel rant. Included in her paranoid conspiracy view of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks is promotion of Iran’s anti-Western, PressTV Web site. Boucek’s comments were limited to disagreeing with the caller’s “entangled” assertion – and reiterating what he sees as the dangers faced by Yemen and the resulting implications for the United States.

This caller utters such expressions as:

“Well, he [President Obama] took us into Iraq, into Afghanistan. N
ow with Israel, they’re trying to go against Syria. All these wars we’re fighting for Israel…(6/9/12)”

“The European Jews introduced terrorism.”

“First of all, you need to go to Presstv.com (Iran’s government mouthpiece) to get real, unbiased news.”

“Nobody is covering the killing of the Palestinians that were holding up the white flags. I mean, from the Israelis. I mean it’s just mind boggling to me – of course because of Jewish controlled media.”

“Our (Republican) Party has been totally neocon-ed and bought off by AIPAC, the AIPAC lobby – the most dangerous Jewish lobby.”

“Senator McConnell has been sold, bought and paid for by AIPAC.”

“She (Nancy Pelosi) has been bought off by AIPAC which is a very dangerous Jewish lobby.”

While it’s usually a different name and locale each time, the script remains basically the same for each Washington Journal appearance of the caller (45 calls since December 2008):

“It (the economic crisis) all goes back to 9/11 and our support for Israel which made 9/11.”

“I’d like to make a call about the Census. It’s a waste of time taking a census when what you’ve got is this AIPAC lobby that reflects a small percentage of the population, the Jewish line of voters, who are pushing us into these wars for Israel.”

While it’s usually a different name and hometown each time, the script remains basically the same for each Washington Journal appearance of this caller who is actually James Morris (73 calls since Dec. 13, 2008):

The lists in this report are only a partial accounting of all the anti-Israel, anti-Jewish calls aired by Washington Journal in 2009 and into 2010. A much larger list – one that aims to show (chronologically) all of Washington Journal’s anti-Israel, anti-Jewish calls aired in 2009 and thereafter – is in CAMERA’s C-SPAN Watch.

CAMERA Author

Myron KaplanMyron Kaplan is a Senior Research Analyst at CAMERA. His media analyses and commentary have appeared in JNS, Washington Times, and the Jewish Advocate, among other publications. He runs the C-SPAN Watch and Al-Jazeera America Watch features on CAMERA's website.

Eric RozenmanEric Rozenman is Washington director of CAMERA. Before that, he was editor of the Washington Jewish Week and then, executive editor of B’nai B’rith’s International Jewish Monthly. A former congressional press secretary and reporter for the Ohio Scripps-Howard Newspapers, Rozenman has published commentaries and analyses on Israel, U.S. politics and culture in dailies including The Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, USA Today and Philadelphia Inquirer and periodicals such as the Journal for the Study of Antisemitism and the Journal of International Security Affairs.